odd secondary behavior

[kendalljd7]

I've been working on a Canadian Blonde Ale and it's currently in secondary. It had been settling very nicely and was very clear thanks to some liquid isinglass. A couple of days ago, it started bubbling and there is quite a bit of foam on the surface. It almost looks like it's back in primary again and a lot of the sediment has been stirred back up from the turbulance of the rising bubbles. I'm stumped. It's been in secondary for about 2 weeks now, and I'm a little concerned that the batch has gone bad. Any thoughts?

 

[Yooper]

I've been working on a Canadian Blonde Ale and it's currently in secondary. It had been settling very nicely and was very clear thanks to some liquid isinglass. A couple of days ago, it started bubbling and there is quite a bit of foam on the surface. It almost looks like it's back in primary again and a lot of the sediment has been stirred back up from the turbulance of the rising bubbles. I'm stumped. It's been in secondary for about 2 weeks now, and I'm a little concerned that the batch has gone bad. Any thoughts?

I can think of three possiblities- one is infection, but that's not likely.

More likely is that fermentation wasn't 100% finished in primary, so "something" (maybe racking it?) caused it to kick start fermentation, to finish it up. What was the SG when you put it in secondary?

Another thought is just a weather change (a front, high pressure, temperature change) causing some co2 to come out of suspension, causing the look of bubbles.

I would think that #2 is most likely, but it depends on what your SG readings were/are.

And, welcome to HBT!

 

[kendalljd7]

Thanks

SG was about 1.018, and the FG should be between 1.010-1.012. So I'm thinking you're probably right with #2. Funny thing is that it was settling and was nice and clear a few days ago, and it was racked to secondary almost 2 weeks ago. It's like it spontaneously started fermenting again.

As far as the weather goes, I'm up in Maine and we just had one hellacious rainstorm pass through for the last couple of days. Maybe the extreme low pressure caused a combination of #3 + #2?